#sm280

I found a bowling ball in the meadow. No really, I did. Typically in the spring, after the snow melted in the Colorado high country, all sorts of interesting things were revealed that had previously gone unnoticed for years, decades or maybe even centuries. While I was pondering the thought of how the bowling ball got there, my eighteen-year-old son, had already grabbed an armload of small round logs from the stack of firewood up at the house and set them up in true “bowling alley” fashion. He always was one to seize the moment and this was a prime example. Instantly, what could have been an insignificant find, shrugged off, unexplained and quickly forgotten, was now ten minutes of pure joy I will never forget. All of my troubles, sorrows, worries and concerns vanished as we watched the giant marble slowly roll into the logs, knocking them over, one by one, “STRIKE!”. You would have thought we had just won a million dollars the way we carried on; laughing and setting up the “pins” over and over again.

Reflecting on this memory makes me think about the day in front of me. Where is the extraordinary in the ordinary? Whatever or wherever it is, I want to find it, I want to be surprised. As an artist, I know the magic that occurs when I study the details of something, such as a tree, or a horse grazing in the meadow or my half-full cup of coffee sitting on the glass table in front of me. Take the tree for example. I have driven past it at least a hundred times but when I give my full attention to the tree, the scars on the trunk, the broken off branches, the individual leaves and think about the stories it could tell, my heart is filled with wonder and a new appreciation for this extraordinary tree.

There is great magic in giving attention to something. I guess that is why it is also called “paying attention,” because my attention really is the most valuable asset I have.

She weighs four pounds. It doesn’t sound like much, but weight doesn’t seem to have anything to do with it. Her four tiny paws might as well belong to a St. Bernard because that is what they feel like at 5 a.m. Beams of energy shoot out from her eyes, her ears, and her muscles. So much that I am concerned she might explode. Even though it is still dark outside she knows morning has arrived and there is absolutely no snooze button on this miniature alarm clock—I spend more conscious effort trying not to move and in pretending that I am still asleep. So, I get up, mission accomplished.

I admit, this wake-up call is my own fault. I have created a chaotic morning ritual of giving my two dogs, Puzzle and Lola, “Greenies” as soon as we get up. I started the greenie routine to keep them occupied long enough for me to heat up a cup of yesterday’s coffee in the microwave. Thus, we now have a set order of events every morning—greenies, breakfast for the dogs (coffee for me) and then we all go outside. Once outside, there is an instant silence and I am filled with awe. Stars fill the vast canopy over my head and the moon glows in the early morning sky while it waits for the sun to make a grand entrance so that it can quietly slip away. As the steam rises from my coffee mug, I am grateful that I am able to begin my day with such a grand display of nature. —Back inside, the dogs go back to bed and the morning is all mine.

The animals that have taken care of me over the years have brought so many good things into my life; laughter, smiles, exercise, conversation, the list is never ending. Reflecting on this, I am reminded of an old man I used to know years ago. When my children were young we lived on a ranch about two miles outside of a small mountain town in the Colorado Rockies. Across the dirt road there was another ranch and from my house, I could just barely see the roofline of the original homestead owned by Horace Button. Horace’s wife had passed away and he did not live there anymore, he lived in town with his sister. Horace did, however, still have a small misfit herd of cattle that consisted of an old crippled bull, two or three worn out cows and  a few of their inbred offspring.  Every day Horace would walk from town, feed his herd and walk back.

Horace was once a champion skier and the years of surviving Colorado winters had left him with frostbit fingers and toes. Cataracts had concealed most of his vision and he wore dark sunglasses to cover his eyes. This daily walk took him most the day. His feet never left the ground, instead, he shuffled along the gravel road and through the pasture leaving a solid zig-zag trail behind him. His boots were never laced. I presume that he was not able to tie the laces with his arthritic hands. The cows could see him coming down the long open road and they would patiently stand and watch him as he slowly approached.

Many times, I would pass Horace along the road. I always stopped and offered him a ride, but he only accepted my offer twice, even in the worst blizzards. A week following one of the rides he accepted, he walked to our house, knocked on the door and gave both of my sons a piece of hard candy. On several occasions, someone from town would come out with a snowplow and clear a path to the haystack. In the time I knew him, Horace only spoke a few words to me and I remember him saying that the cows kept him alive. After that, I understood why he made the daily trek even though it would have been so much easier to sell the herd. Those cows were his guardians. They gave him a reason to get up in the morning, to get dressed, to walk and to live.

I am thankful I have animals who care that much about me (sleeping in is overrated anyway). And for graphic design purposes, mornings are when the ideas flow freely, creativity is abundant and I feel I can tackle anything. So rise and shine, it is a good day to be alive and one more thing, thank you Lola.

Create, Create, Create.

Recently I participated in my first Words and Music program for the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee. The Words and Music program is an accredited curriculum that teaches students language arts through writing song lyrics. The students spend eleven weeks learning how to write a song lyric and on the twelfth week a professional songwriter, who has taken the lyrics and put music to several of them, comes into the classroom and plays the songs back to the class. The students have no idea whose lyrics have been put to music. I can still see the faces of some of those children as they listened intently and heard the words they had written coming back to them in a song. This was a life-defining moment for me. Everything I have studied about songwriting, all the workshops I have attended, all the money I have spent, the books I have read, the people I have met, the countless hours of practice, the concerts I have attended and the shows I have performed, had all prepared me for that moment. Freely sharing my gifts and my time with others has taught me the importance of making a connection and making a difference. Every year I write down goals; one year, five years, ten years. In that classroom, I realized that a five-year goal I had written in 2010 was being lived out then and there. I was sharing my love for music and songwriting, teaching and encouraging a room of fourth graders to write and play music. My heart is still overflowing with gratitude. Nashville has given me the gift of discovering my purpose in life and helping me to find my own way in a sea of musical talent. Playing for Musicians on Call for the past two years has also taught me how to connect with my listeners one on one, to be myself and simply give what I have to offer. I am blessed to live in a place that has so many opportunities. For a recent school project at Nossi College of Art, I  was instructed to design an ad campaign for my favorite charitable organization. I chose an organization I am actively involved in as a volunteer, Musicians on Call (MOC) . I sent the final designs to the organization and received a letter of appreciation from the marketing director for choosing MOC for my project and offering an open invitation to keep them in mind for future design projects. Designing for a cause that I believe in allowed me to really wrap my heart around the project and brought me great satisfaction in return.

A PEICE OF ME;

This is my daughter, she is five years old... I am 20. I had my daughter when I was 14 years old. She is my world. I may have been young but I grew up fast. Times have and will be hard, but I would never take back having my little girl. She loves doing art and she has an amazing personality. 

Having a daughter so young has been a journey, a hard journey. I have had struggles; I have doubted myself.. But in the end, I have my own place, I work at a bank, go to college, and raise her with by myself. I do what I do because i want my daughter to have everything I never had. I want her to have a smile on her face and know her mommy did all she could for her. 

Our GPS announced that we had arrived at our destination, but I was not convinced. Although there were numbers on several of the doors and a couple of cars parked nearby, the weathered building did not show any evidence of being an open motel. A faded sign confirmed that we were indeed at the location where our reservation had been made, so we got out of the car and proceeded to identify which door might be the office. The first door we tried was locked. As I reached for the doorknob of the second door I stopped short when I saw it was covered with cobwebs. Through dirty windows I could see that there were people sitting at a table inside, so we went again to the first door. It still did not budge but with a swift kick to the base it opened wide, nothing like a grand entrance. We told the bartender we were there for a room. A woman sitting at the bar, smoking a cigarette, exhaled and said, “We don’t have any rooms.” My husband said we had a reservation. “Oh,” the woman replied, she told the bartender it was room #2. The young bartender kindly told us it was being cleaned and would be ready shortly. An hour later we returned and were informed that the vacuum had broke and our room was not quite ready. We ordered a couple of cold drinks and went outside to the deck which overlooked a lake. A short time later the bartender brought us the key. As I cautiously opened the door of Room #2, the smell of deodorizer masking a fishy smell was thick in the air. Always the optimist, I quickly pointed out that the air conditioner worked great and the room appeared to be clean. We quickly got ready and left for our music gig. We arrived back at the motel/bar at 12:30 and decided to go into the bar and get a cold beer. I forced the door open once again. Purple Rain was playing on the jukebox and there were about 20 people inside. At a table in the corner, we sipped our ice cold beers and sang along with Prince. The song ended and as the next song began to play a man jumped up from his barstool and led his partner to the jukebox to dance. He looked over at my husband and told him we needed to dance. Mickey never has been a big dancer but for some reason he kindly obliged and we joined several couples on the small open floor. Chris Stapleton sang Tennessee Whiskey and the music carried us away. At that moment, the shortcomings of the rundown motel faded from my mind. I was being held by my love, listening to an amazing rendition of a classic country song and my world was perfect. We slept well that night and I awoke to a peaceful view of fog rising from the calm and undisturbed waters of the lake. I left the motel that morning with a second impression, and that is the one that will last.

If you're a visual human like me, infographics are pretty much your best friend. You don’t have time to read that lengthy article about how to make that cake, or be that certain individual or even how to stand out in a crowd. 

As a designer, it is important to stand out in an overcrowded arena. It’s not like Pokemon and you can’t catch them all.  This infographic shares some great tips on how to stand out specifically in this kind of market. 

What originally drew me to this infographic wasn't the content that was carefully thought out. It was actually the colors and the typography and that header combine all three elements. Green makes you feel calm, and also informative. You often see green used for informational purposes. When driving down the highway or street what color are the signs? Green right? Interesting concept to that, but it shows in this design, the colors were thought out.